Sometimes the Best Stories Are the Ones You Didn't Plan

Some of the best stories aren't the ones you sit down and plan to write.

Sometimes they're just memories.

This morning, with the first cool weather we've had since May, I found myself thinking about a house I worked on back in 1980.

I had just been laid off from a house builder. "Laid off" is a nice way of saying, "You're fired." 😂

I went to work on my own (for the next 25 years.) The first house I taped, bedded and textured was being built with students from a high-school trades class.

The night before, I had mixed up my texture in a 55-gallon drum. The next morning I poured it into my hopper and started spraying.

Except it wouldn't spray.

The hopper was stopped up.

After checking everything, I discovered the problem.

There were sheet-rock nails in my texture!

Apparently, after I had left, some of the students had decided to contribute a few ingredients of their own.

I wasn't laughing then.

I was pretty upset.

But nearly half a century later, I can look back at it and laugh.

And that is where the writing lesson comes in.

Details Make a Story

I could have simply written:

"When I was doing drywall work in 1980, some students put nails in my texture and stopped up my hopper."

That's what happened, but it's not much of a story.

The details make the difference.

A 55-gallon drum gives you something to picture.

A hopper that suddenly won't spray creates a little mystery.

Then you discover sheet-rock nails in the texture.

Now the reader wants to know how they got there.

Those little details turn an event into a story.

You Don't Have to Invent a Story

One of the easiest mistakes a writer can make is thinking every story has to be invented or dramatic.

It doesn't.

Look through your own memories.

Think about the jobs you've had, the people you've met, the mistakes you've made, the things that made you angry at the time but make you laugh now.

There are probably stories hiding in those memories.

You just have to find them.

And sometimes the best stories are the ones you never intended to tell.

That house in 1980 wasn't supposed to become a story.

It was just supposed to get textured.

But 46 years later, it gave me something worth writing about.

That's one of the things I like about writing.

You never know where the next story is going to come from.